My stomach was so tense in this moment – not just because of what they might say to each other, but because of what fandom might say about what they say to each other. Instinctively, I tried to see it from Sam’s perspective – he’d been hurt, he felt betrayed, he wasn’t over that yet. He didn’t accept Dean’s apology (which I suppose is his right, though that stung on a very personal level). He’d been barely hanging on, needing to trust in his “stone #1” and felt that had been yanked out from under him. So, he was Very Angry. I got it. I understood.

But my heart gravitated toward Dean. And he broke it with every word because I saw his pain. I felt it. I was right there with him, each sentence as his eyes lit up with his own anger and his jaw tensed with his own pain and he finally laid himself open to Sam after all the quiet guilt and the week and a half of being apart.

Sam: What?!

Dean: You’re pissed. And you’ve got a right.

Sam: Damn straight.

Dean: But enough’s enough.

Sam (voice trembling, barely able to keep his voice below a yell): Says who? I’ll work this damn case. But you lied to me. And you killed my friend.

As he walked away, I realized my face was hot. The guys both play my heart differently, but the self righteousness in Sam’s words burned my throat. For one who lives in so much gray when it comes to everyone else, he’s awfully black and white when it comes to Dean. Dean lied, yes, but Sam’s not innocent of that by a long shot. Dean killed Amy, but Sam defining her as his friend felt a bit of a stretch. He met her once, for about a minute, and he was about to kill her himself before he changed his mind when he heard her reasons why she’d started killing again.

Dean: No, I put down a monster who had killed four people and if you didn’t know her you’d have done the same thing.

Sam: I did know her.

Dean: Which is why you couldn’t do it. Look, I get it. There are certain people in this world no matter how dangerous they are, you just can’t—

Sam (giving up the pretense and yelling now): Don’t pull that card! That’s bull! If I’ve learned one thing, it’s that if something feels wrong, it probably is.

*rubs heart* Gah, Sam. That’s all he’s got, really. What he feels. It’s the only way he can really tell what’s real and what isn’t. He’d have a right to be Very Angry anyway, but this makes my heart break for him.

Dean: Killing Amy was not wrong. You couldn’t do it, so I did. And I would have told you. Eventually. Once I knew that this whole waving a gun at Satan thing was a one-time show. I think it’s reasonable to want to know you’re off the freakin’ high-dive, Sam. You almost got us both killed. You can be pissed all you want. But quit being a bitch.

*stands and applauds* Oh, damn, that felt good.

He never told Sam to stop being angry. He never told him he was wrong for being angry. He just told him to man up, be angry, and work it out. They are brothers. Partners. They keep each other alive. They have sacrificed so much for each other. There is no reason that this one thing should drive a permanent wedge between them. And I’m not calling it a ‘thing’ to lessen its importance, because it is a big deal. But it’s one big deal in a history of big deals. It’s one big deal in a relationship where a blanket apology has been uttered over the grave of a fallen comrade. Where the realization that walking away, leaving, was wrong. Where life and death struggles are a way of life and they fight monsters who look like people and people who act like monsters.

Dean is ready to take the beating he as much as says that Sam is justified in giving out. But he’s not willing to lose Sam over this and he’s not willing to let Sam go. Dean walks off and Sam watches him go. Next thing you know it’s night and they’re digging up Kate’s grave – having figured her as the ghost due to the whole troubled, levitating, foretelling death deal.

Sam: I get why she’s killing people. I just don’t get why she’s warning them.

This should have given me the clue I needed, but…I was slow. I bet you all caught on waaaay before me.

Dean (his voice shrugging): Give them a taste of the curse, maybe? (glances down at Sam) Couldn’t have been a joyride.

Sam breaks open the box. Dean has the lighter fluid, Sam has the salt, they start pouring it in. Just then, Kate shows up out of nothing and shoves Sam, hard, away from the grave. She turns to Dean screeching, “Listen to me! Why isn’t anyone listening?!”

Gaelicspirit is a storyteller. She is a recent addition to Whedonverse Network, but has been writing and posting recap/reviews of Supernatural on LiveJournal since 2007. She works as a freelance writer and consultant in the real world, and is ever-connected to the six-degrees of Joss Whedon.

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Gaelicspirit

Gaelicspirit is a storyteller. She is a recent addition to Whedonverse Network, but has been writing and posting recap/reviews of Supernatural on LiveJournal since 2007. She works as a freelance writer and consultant in the real world, and is ever-connected to the six-degrees of Joss Whedon.